


The Scientist and His Fish

by LoweFantasy



Category: Ghost Hunt
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Interspecies Romance, Little Mermaid Elements, Originally Posted on FanFiction.Net, Romance, Suspense, Thriller, Torture, mermaid
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-17
Updated: 2016-01-01
Packaged: 2018-04-26 20:24:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 20,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5019202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoweFantasy/pseuds/LoweFantasy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He only meant to debunk the myth of mermaids, not fall in love with one or get dragged into some freak underground lab that tortured mermaids for their tears. Can be read without knowing the fandom.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

“ _I must be a mermaid, Rango. I have no fear of depths and a great fear of shallow living.”_

―  _Anaïs Nin_

 

Even though she could breathe and move about the water as good as any fish, the vast open sea before her returned to her the childish fear of the deep end of the pool. Past her little shelf of land, she wouldn't be able to see the bottom, and at the same time, she was afraid of seeing just how far down it went.

Depth. Far down to the depths, where who knew what waited.

The copper scaled mermaid shivered and watched bubbles rise as she took a deep breath and felt the cool water rush past the gills on her sides. Those had been the most painful to grow, and even now she refused to look down in fear of seeing the fleshy slits open and close with each breath. Even now, it was all too surreal to her.

Despite it being night, the silver moon lit up the water ahead of her until the water grew too murky to see.

“Okay,” she said, hoping to distract herself with how weirdly clear her voice sounded under water. “You're a freaking mermaid now, this should be your natural habitat. Besides, it's not like you have to go all the way out there, right?”

The quiet murmur of the ocean currents pressed in on her eardrums in answer. She clenched the strings of her sportsnet bag, where the bare, waterproof essentials floated about.

Who the hell was she kidding? She had no idea where she was going.

But she couldn't stay here much longer. Her parents would be searching for her soon, and if she didn't get going soon, she'd lose whatever courage she had left and just go back.

Taking another deep inhale of salty water, she tipped forward and swam out to the edge of the land shelf. There, she followed it, not daring once to take a peek over the edge. 


	2. The Lie of Sea Romance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An intro to our arrogant jerkweed of a hero and his taciturn assistant, as well as an explanation as to what the freak they're doing out in the middle of the ocean.

“ _Traditions concerning creatures half-human and half-fish in form have existed for thousands of years,and the Babylonian deity Era or Oannes, the Fish-god, is represented on seals and in sculpture, as being in this shape over 2,000 years B.C. He is usually depicted as having a bearded head with a crown and a body like a man, but from the waist downwards, he has the shape of a fish covered with scales and a tail."_

_\--C.J.S. Thompson, former curator at the Royal College of Surgeons of England_

 

 

Kazuya Shibuya considered himself to be incredibly patient, especially given his youth, thank you very much. But then, he rarely considered his youth as a factor in any of his behavior or choices. Afterall, what other eighteen year old had a Ph'd, a modest fortune, and a name many in the scientific world had come to respect?

But hunched over in the coolest corner of the tiny, old yacht, his patience had come to its end.

“I thought you said you'd prepared for any repairs that might be needed on this ship?”

The captain, who had to be at least twenty years his senior with a weathered brown face that showed it, kept his eyes on Kazuya's shoes, as though meeting his employers eyes might burn him.

“I did, it's just with a piston blown, I'm going to have to rebuild the entire engine--”

“Then you weren't prepared, otherwise you'd have a spare piston, even a spare engine.”

“With all due respect, sir, it's not the wisest thing in the world to store a multi-thousand dollar yacht engine on the yacht itself, exposed to the elements.”

The young scientist pinched the bridge of his nose. There was a reason he hadn't studied anything in the ocean up until now. At least on land, when all else failed, you could walk. God forbid he should try to swim, though. Water was, after all, the greatest killer of mankind.

“Fine. When will it be fixed?”

“In a few days.”

“I need a number, Charles.”

“Two.”

“And how close are we to our coordinates?”

The captain's face scrunched up a bit, twitched, and then fell back into the flat penitence that looked so odd for a man his age to give to another so young. But, well, Kazuya was use to it.

“A few days out. We are relatively close to land, though. I've already got a hold of the coast guard to come pick us up.”

Good, so he could actually get off this damn, rocking water trap. “And they'll be here...?”

“They didn't say. But it should be this evening, at the latest.”

Given that it was noon, and the festering hot of the sun burning down and up from its million watt reflection off the water, this wasn't the news Kazuya wanted to hear. Snapping the book shut that had been forgotten in his other hand, the young scientist thanked the captain curtly for his work, then dug himself, if possible, even deeper into his dark little corner of his cabin. Even with only a little circle of glass to connect him to that heated world of sunlit mirrors, the heat just wouldn't leave. It was like it had nowhere to go other than in there, to Kazuya.

“It would be cooler outside.”

Lin, his tall, dark, and taciturn assistant, had also hidden himself in the corner, but with a laptop, where he was transcribing paper after paper of Kazuya's tightly spaced handwriting. Through the whole conversation with the captain he had been silent, which was his way. Even to his employer he rarely spoke a word, unless necessary. Also, per usual, he showed an uncanny ability to guess whatever was on Kazuya's mind. Perhaps it was an unavoidable result of having to transcribe all his handwritten essays, books, notes, and letters (Kazuya had a thing with writing all his ideas with a pen—helped his flow of thinking).

Kazuya just kicked back his chair. “Probably, but then I'd have to be around all those blue-collared idiots making poorly hidden jabs at my age.”

“Perhaps if you sit around long enough, they'll start telling sailor tales.” Which, as Lin correctly guessed, would be helpful to Kazuya's current subject of study.

“More like tales of how I could be their grandchild.” But despite his reluctance, the logic couldn't be denied. Still, it just seemed so useless to be up there in all the blasted sun and sea spray. Where was the romance to the ocean he was promised? Didn't they name the smell of shampoos and perfumes after this briny, fishy, seaweed reeking breeze? What about the refreshing spray of salty, icy, filthy ocean water? And why didn't anyone tell him the sun would be out every freaking day? What about all those terrible sea-storms that filled the sky with clouds like sea monsters? Typhoons? Hurricanes? Cyclones?

Of course, humanity and their love for the dramatic and the imaginative. He should know. He studied where that very line of imagination ended and reality begun.

But even if it would be cooler up on deck, he couldn't stand the idea of being up there with nothing to do. He was paying real money for this trip, and every day was one less day to find the truth.

“Lin, where exactly are we?”

The sound of typing gave way to the clicks of a mouse.

“Just off the coast of Corpus Christi, Texas.”

“We're still in the States?” Kazuya let out a loud groan before running his hands through his dark hair. “At this rate, by the time we reach Guatemala, the fishing festival will be over.”

“Maybe starting up again,” said Lin in his quiet sarcasm.

Kazuya was not amused. He paced around for a good while, pulled out his trunk of supplies to make a check of them just because, and then ran his hands along each of the tubs that held nets and various other supplies, taking note of their purposes that would, most likely, never come to pass. He was just playing with the idea of checking the tech room on the second floor, where all the radars and infrared sensors were, when one of his nails caught on the edge of a net. Wrinkling his nose, he tugged at it till it partially spilled across the floor and his finger bled. Lin watched with a disapproving frown that asked why Kazuya had decided to be an idiot just then.

But the young man still had his hand on the net. What the hell. They were in the ocean, weren't they?

“I'm going to take this out,” he said, tugging the dark green, microfiber mess. “Who knows, maybe I'll catch some crab for dinner—or a mermaid.”

He laughed dryly at that. Though the net was designed to catch something of that size, it had been, like most of his equipment, brought on more of a 'just in the far away case,' rather than an actual needed reason.

For Kazuya Shibuya was no ordinary scientist. The young man led his field in the study of the paranormal, supernatural, extraordinary, and the psychology and sociology that birthed them.

As the young man tugged the tote full of net out and heaved it up the stairs, the mad pitter-patter of his assistant's typing started up again, and Kazuya prepared himself for the onslaught of the sun outside. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sleeping on the ocean floor and beware of crab nets. The Scientist and the Fish meet.

“ _I am a siren, and for my adoration of mankind, have been caught in fishing nets one time too many. And in those fishing nets I have learned too many unfavorable things about human intentions and the lack of trust and goodwill; I'm not going to allow myself to be caught, anymore. Sirens do well at singing the sirens' song and dragging vile people to their deaths, and for good reason!”_

― _C. JoyBell C._

She slept on the ocean floor for the first time in her life. Though the sand was comfortable enough, and being a mermaid somehow made the ocean water feel warmer, she slept fitfully. Every sound outside of the hush of waves jerked her awake with thoughts of sharks, poisonous manta rays, or who knew what else. Just because she had turned into some mermaid didn't mean she suddenly had a special knowledge of what lived in the ocean. Just to be sure, though, she kept only a foot or two of water above her and allowed the low tide to pull her out as the dawn drew near. Even after sunlight came, she dozed on, somehow finding some peace in the turquoise, sunlit water that the night hadn't given.

She finally gave up on getting any more rest when she could no longer ignore the ache in her stomach. The last time she had eaten a good full meal had been at lunch the day before, which didn't help her exhaustion and anxiety at all.

There was no use helping it. She'd have to find a place to dry off to go on land for some food. Hopefully, her parents wouldn't have noticed the old credit card she had picked off of them, and further yet, hopefully credit cards didn't get ruined by ocean water.

Brushing her hands over the ocean floor as she went, she pushed herself forward. The speed which her long, powerful tail gave her still made her a bit breathless with excitement, even after traveling for hours that way. It sent her zooming past more than a few schools of silver fish, which bolted the moment they saw her. A few crabs had been seen scuttling around, but since they reminded her of spiders, she left them well alone, and they left her alone. But though she had gone miles, it seemed like, she hadn't seen much more than sand. She wondered if the majority of sea life waited off the shelf of land she had yet to find the bravery to reach.

After swimming a bit, she surfaced, careful to check for signs of boats or docks. What she saw made her stomach drop. Ocean. The beach itself was far to the west, and she realized a second later that it wasn't even the main continent itself, but the shelf of land that hugged Texas's bay. She hadn't realized she had gone so far out to sea by following the cliff-edge.

At the distance, her stomach gave an ugly grumble. She wrapped her arms around her waist.

“Why didn't I think to pack some canned food?”

Because the credit card plan had seemed good enough.

“Damn it.” Well, she might as well get going. Couldn't starve now. Some mermaid she was turning out to be. Couldn't even figure out how to find food in this stupid endless bowl of water. How was she even suppose to find other mermaids—or, er, merpeople? They did exist, right? She existed.

Not wanting to go down that train of thought (again), she ducked down into the water and started out once more. Since the depth of the water made seeing into the distance difficult, she had to pop up every now and then to keep the North side edge of the shelf in sight. Somewhere around the time the sun reached its zenith and she had halved the distance, a small, off-white yacht of some sorts came into view, still and quiet in the water. Annoyed, she made sure of the distance, and ducked down for good, mumbling about stupid reach people who couldn't just stay to going on cruises. Probably on their way to the Bahamas or something.

Her stomach squeezed tight, slowing her as the rest of her muscles cramped along with it. Swimming took a lot more of her torso muscles than she had previously believed, and they already protested plenty from the crappy night sleep on an ocean floor.

Thus, when she finally saw the floating lines of thin ropes, she was too food-deprived to care about swimming around it. She could see the hunk of raw fish on the bottom and the half a dozen or so crabs that had already congregated to it and knew well enough that the chances of them lifting up the net just as she swam over was slim to none. Not to mention she was human—ish, and wasn't stupid enough to get caught in something so arcane. She swam through without a thought.

A tug on her shoulder yanked her back painfully. Her yelp flew up in a stream of bubbles.

“What the...” The sportsnet bag had somehow twisted around one of the many ropes holding apart the net. Groaning, she went about untying it. Couldn't leave her means to food behind after all.

It wasn't till she had undone the first string that she noticed the squares of rising green lines. Her food and sleep deprived mind just stared at it blankly, still not registering the threat. The crabs had gone wild and scuttled up the walls of rope like poorly trained rock climbers.

Then the dead fish head squashed against her scaled behind and the net scooped up her tail at an awkward angle. A rope pressed in hard against one of her sides, shutting the gil and knocking the breath from her.

_What...?_

Panic clicked in. Adrenalin pumped in like hot-wired needles. Water turned to white foam about her as she flailed, completely forgetting about the tiny, tungsten pocket knife in her bag. All her attention was on that small opening at the top that grew brighter and brighter with the nearing surface.

_You have got to be kidding me!_

Her last protection peeled away in a rush of cold air. Crabs caught to her fins, dead fish smeared over her arms. She grasped tight to the net, clawing her way up to the opening. In her desperation, she didn't even bother taking in the yacht or her captors.

She had just gotten her arms into the opening and thought she tasted freedom when it all fell away and the hard, too-hot floor slapped her in the back with a crunch of unfortunate crabs. Her vision burst with stars as her head slammed against it.

And through the stars, she just made out wide blue eyes staring down at her, framed by wind-tossed black hair.


	4. Mermaids Make Beans Taste Better

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Scientist freaks out over his mythical catch, and Mai begs for relief.

“ _Sirenomelia, alternatively known as Mermaid Syndrome, is a very rare congenital deformity in which the legs are fused together, giving them the appearance of a mermaid's tail.”_

\--Wikipedia

 

Kazuya gawked at the mess of crab, net, copper scales, and pale skin at his feet, unaware of the shocked profanities of the fellow crewmen around him. The girl was nothing of what he expected, and everything that he had dreamed. Short brown hair splayed about her face in wet, messy strings, and the bra she wore wasn't made out of seashells, but a normal bikini top, one that she could have even bought at a local store. Just a hands breath beneath the strings was the red line of fleshy gills that flapped uselessly in the open air.

He didn't have much of an opportunity to take in more than that. He had just taken to admiring the way her scales looked like millions of new pennies in the sunlight before she started to shriek bloody murder.

Everyone on deck jumped. All but Kazuya slapped their hands over their ears as the mermaid continued to scream at the top of her lungs and writhe against the net. Her large, powerful tail thudded on the deck and sent pieces of loose machinery and buckets flying. The captain didn't step away fast enough before getting a face full of half-crunched blue crab.

But Kazuya wanted to hear it—this could be the first living record of the shriek of a live mermaid. He felt dazed, dream-like, and it must have really gotten to his head for he thought he could hear words in between screams that could have been English.

“Someone shut her up!”

The first mate, a huge bear of a man, crashed down on the girl's tail just as another man slapped his hand over her mouth. He jumped back when she bit him, just to be replaced by the captain stuffing a wad of his jacket in her mouth.

Ears ringing, Kazuya sprinted through the door nearest to him, crashing into a wall as he made his way to his cabin and supplies as quick as he could. Yui met him halfway, looking frazzled. Before he could ask what all the commotion had been about, Kazuya told him to ready the tank and pushed past.

His hands shook as he opened tub after tub, pulling out ropes and slinging a camera around his neck. Never, in all his studies—he could hardly think it. The words would make the excitement suffocating.

It took longer than he wanted to immobilize her enough to move her, and it took nearly all the ropes he had brought along. Hyper aware of her gills uselessly flapping at her sides, he prayed the stress of being in the air wouldn't put any permanent damage on this priceless specimen. Each touch of her cool wet skin and her scaled tail proved her authenticity. He couldn't get the men to move quick enough, and didn't really breathe until they had cut the robes and let her fall into the giant tank which sat in the middle of what once had been a ballroom on the yacht. Before she had even hit the bottom, he had his hands on the senors, checking quickly to make sure the water inside differed as little as possible from the ocean she had just left.

“Don't stand there like idiots, put the lid on!”

Sweaty, and just as feverish with excitement as him, all three crewmen scrambled to get the monstrous lid atop the tank. The mermaid looked as though still gathering her bearings, with her eyes clenched tight and her arms wrapped tightly about her head.

“It's too warm. Yui, get some ice.”

Yui ran off.

“Captain, radio the coast guard. Tell them nevermind, we have beds and food enough on this ship.”

“Yessir.”

“You, on that table over there should be a notebook and some measuring tape. Get that. And you, get me the time of capture and the coordinates exactly—not a single digit off, you hear?”

They scrambled. After the first mate had handed Kazuya his notebook, he sent him off to fetch ice with Yui. All the while, he kept one eye on the mermaid curled within. His heart hammered as though to break forth from his chest, but he couldn't shake the mad smile on his face. He barely had the mind to remember to lock the top of the tank as Yui and the men dumped in shoebox after shoebox of ice through the air openings in the lid.

“Stop, that should be good enough. Now all of you but Yui leave, you can gawk at her later. I need quiet.”

When they hesitated like a group of school boys asked to leave the scene of a murder, he settled one of the blood freezing glares he was so proud of on them.

They closed the door behind them, plunging the ballroom into shadowy dimness. A lone, tiny window near the front of the ballroom let sunlight in a single, golden column, but Naru ignored that as he went around to turn on the lights of the tank, which soon filled the darkness of the room with green luminescence.

The mermaid had yet to move. Her hair fluttered in the little movement of the water about her. For a brief, terrifying moment, he thought the shock had been too great for her. What if he had killed her? Made her irreparably sick? After all, there had never been a recorded capture of a mermaid like this before. What if they all died after capture?

Just to be sure, he checked the sensors. The temperature of the tank had dropped, but not enough. It would take time. His hand shook too much to keep taking notes. He snapped his notebook close and handed it to his assistant.

“Pick up on notes for me.”

The tall man nodded, expression long with solemnity, but his dark eyes bright with the same excitement Kazuya felt.

When the mermaid remained curled up on the bottom of the tank, Kazuya had to shove down the urge to stick a pole in to poke her, just to see if she was still alive. So, to distract himself, he crouched down to take in what he couldn't as she thrashed about on the deck. Gills on the sides, that was unprecedented. The copper tail might match the highlights of her hair once it was dry. And despite the bronze fins poking out the sides of each of her forearms, and the dorsal fin half-way down her tail, her skin was no different from the average human. It wasn't even tanned, just pale, even ghostly in the greenish light of the tank.

The fin at the end of her tail, however, gave him the urge to pick up his notebook once more and start sketching. Rather than the usual ocean going fin, the scales merged into something akin to ones of those flourishing goldfish tails, giving the appearance or layers of skirt billowing out from the end of her tail. His imagination played with the idea of tiny, human feet hidden amongst the folds of gossamer fin. If he hadn't seen hair or tail of any other human life in the ocean beforehand, he'd even begin to think this girl was an eccentric human and not a mermaid...

His breath caught. What if she was fake? What if the gills were just for show and she had somehow had an oxygen supply down below--

He launched himself at the locks. Yui jumped at his laptop.

“Kazuya?”

Just then, the captain came in.

“Sir, this was found in the net.”

The momentary break to take a look at what appeared to be an ordinary bag of mesh, the kind generally used to hold water bottles and not much else, helped bring his senses back to him. Why would she have been so furious at being caught if she weren't the real deal? How could he have felt the very muscles and flesh beneath the scaled skin of her tale if fake? And why come all the way out here, where there weren't even any coral reefs to explore? And if she were desperate for air, why curl up on the bottom like that? Kazuya had made sure himself that she had been lowered in as gently as physically possible at the time, so she couldn't have hit her head hard enough to lose consciousness.

Redoing the lock he had undone, he kept his chin down as he took the bag from the captain, who had all his attention on the glowing tank in the room.

“By golly...”

“You're excused, captain.”

“Surely it wouldn't be such a hassle—can't I at least take some pictures? For home?”

Kazuya sharpened. “You most absolutely cannot! Didn't I have you and your crew sign a contract of privacy before this journey?”

The captain sobered. His wonder vanished from his face. “Of course, sir.” He bowed his head and left.

Kazuya was sure to lock the door behind him. Yui still watched him oddly, but his boss ignored him as he returned once more to the sensors on the tank while peeling open the bag. Inside he found several ziplock bags. One, he noted, held a credit card, another a cell phone which had been double protected in several layers of bag, and with its battery separated from it. The rest held basic, small survival tools, such as a pocket knife, matches, and—to the embarrassment of a very small part of him that hadn't forgotten what it meant to be eighteen years old—a rolled up pair of bikini bottoms.

This was the strangest part of all the oddities. What need did a mermaid have of bikini bottoms? If it weren't for the fact they matched the top she wore exactly, he would have shrugged off the whole bag as some possible debris she had picked up somewhere. Not to mention the odd fact that everything inside had been water-proofed so thoroughly.

He took up the credit card to squint at the name. “Jason M. McGomrey...”

“You can keep it if you let me go.”

He had never been so startled in his life. Even Yui flinched so bad that he ended up slapping the laptop close on accident.

The tiny, muffled voice came from inside the tank, where Kazuya's mermaid had uncurled and had her palms up to the glass, staring at him imploringly. For a moment he was caught up in how large and expressive her brown eyes were. It was the first time he had really had the chance to see them in the struggle.

When he nor his assistant reacted, she said, “Please,” and bit her lip.

He gathered himself the best he could and cleared his throat before saying, hopefully in a loud enough voice to be heard through the thick glass, “You speak English?”

“Yes, and it has a ten thousand dollar limit on it.”

“I'm not a criminal.”

“I'll take credit for it—please, just let me go.”

But that didn't compute in his head. The next thing that struck him was how clear her voice sounded, despite being muffled by water. So odd...maybe if he got a microphone down there...

But wait...

“Take credit?” He blinked, still unable to comprehend. “You're a mermaid, aren't you?” She seemed to be breathing under the water just fine.

“It's my foster dad's, and as far as I know, yeah. Please, just let me go.”

“But you are a...mermaid?”

“Yes! Please!”

Never had he expected this. Not only was this specimen the real deal, but it could talk. And to think, the most he had expected of this trip was a few good meals of fire roasted seafood and a sewn together cadavers of dolphin and a human corpses.

He was finding it hard to breathe. If it weren't for his exceptionally trained logical mind, he'd probably have fainted. Rather, he just nodded, and took up his notebook to make note of the situation and lists of the tests he wanted to run next. All the while, the credit card rested where he had left it on top of the rest of her wet belongings.

His attempts to ignore her pleas ended when she gave a soft whimper.

“Oh god, please, why did you put me in here? Do you work for some marine biologist? Oh god, what's going to happen to me? You're not going to send me to some aquarium or cut me apart to look at all my organs or--”

“Would you please shut up? Your whining is making it hard to think.”

“Think? You—you bastard, I'm stuck in a tank like some—some oversized fish! And I'm not stupid enough to think you're just going to let me float in here for the rest of my life without...” She paused. “You're not going to keep me in here, are you?”

“For the time it takes to run some tests--”

“ _Tests!?”_

“Mostly blood samples and X-rays.”

“Yeah right! I have rights you know, I could sue you for--”

He cut her off, “How do you know English?” At her silence, he looked up from his notebook to see her floating somewhere off in the middle of the tank, her hands to her mouth. As he met her eye, she scrunched her arms in front of her orange and pink flower clad breasts and floated back to the wall.

“I've always known English. It's the only language I know.”

“Is this what is commonly spoken amongst merpeople of your kind?”

She blinked at him. “I don't know.”

“What do you mean you don't know?”

For the first time, a bit of irritation flashed across her face. She frowned.

“What it sounds like, dumbass, _I don't know_. I've never met a mer-whatever before, and if you just let me out of here I'll dry up and you'll see what I'm talking about. Just don't report me or turn me into some freak science specimen, this is exactly why I ran away from home in the first place!”

But, after finishing off his last note, he found his vision starting to dim and spin a bit. After all, even his mind had its limits. Being sure to take a deep breath, he put aside his notebook once more and pushed off from the table he had been resting against.

He needed some air.

“Yui, if you'd watch her.”

His assistant nodded. Doing his best to keep his shoulders back, Kazuya made his way to the door.

“Wait! Please! I beg of you!”

Her wails cut off as he closed the door behind him with a snap.

Out in the sun and sea breeze once more, he slid down the wall to a crouch, putting his head between his knees. He must be dreaming. A mermaid? No, but a fish girl who lived on land? Was it possible that merpeople were just shape shifters living among humans? But he had already investigated the myth of shape shifters. It took him one week, max, to prove just how fictional _that_ was. He could confidently say ship-shifters weren't real, he had gathered the facts till no one could argue against it, not even himself.

But, then again, he had almost been sure mermaids weren't real either.

Man, he loved his job.


	5. What of Floating Turds?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mai comes to terms with the difficulty of life in a tank, as well as the heartlessness of her captor.

_"80% of the ocean undiscovered and you gone tell me #mermaids don't exist."- Twitter user '_ Pawka'

The guy she had been left with didn't even look up at her when she directed her pleas to him. He just sat there like some tall Asian zombie, typing away at who knew what. Feeling her eyes burn and her throat tighten, she finally allowed herself to sink to the bottom of the tank she could just swim a full circle in. Ginormous, yes, if you were a fish. Not a human being.

If that what she was, anyways.

As her stomach cramped for food, more uncomfortable thoughts float up to the surface of her mind: what if she needed to use the bathroom? That had been easy enough swimming along all alone in an ocean (she hadn't looked down to watch how her fish part relieved itself, because that would have been way too weird), but while being under constant supervision? And even if she got a moments peace, didn't that mean she'd be swimming in a tank of her own...and for everyone to see... Just thinking about it made her never want to pee again. Perish the thought if she had to go number two. Maybe, if she didn't eat—her stomach cramped even harder just at the thought—she wouldn't have to. Besides, all she had to do was wait until someone fell asleep or wasn't looking and she could bust out of this stupid tank. Wasn't like it could be that hard, right? What kind of tank was built to keep in a human being, after all—or, rather, someone with the intelligence and mind of a human being?

Man, life was complicated.

Even so, she couldn't think with her stomach aching like this, bathroom issues or not. Besides, if they needed to bring her food, she could get a closer look at just how the top opened and closed. Course, she wouldn't have this problem if she hadn't been freaking out on the bottom when they put the stupid thing up in the first place. And on that thought, why'd she talk? If she had just pretended to be a stupid animal, maybe they would have made it easier for her.

Whatever. Plan A.

She thumped hard on the glass. The Asian guy didn't look up from his laptop. He did adjust his folded legs however with a squeak from his metal chair. That couldn't be comfortable.

"Um, hey, I haven't been able to get food since yesterday morning, is there any chance you could slip me something?"

For the first time, the guy looked up. His narrow eyes held such an intelligent look, that she caught herself second guessing her decision to write him off as the 'scientist in charge.'

"Please? I promise I won't throw a fit. Just some food. You can't have me dying on you, after all."

He sighed. "If you're trying to get out-"

"No, seriously, I'm starving. It's why I was even swimming in this direction. Hoping to hit up a McDonalds or something."

He didn't question that, though the twitch to his left eye gave her the impression that he seemed just as intrigued as the other man that a mermaid would eat hamburgers. But, to her relief, he closed the laptop and got up to leave the room. Her excitement made her stomach cramps, if possible, even worse, and when he returned with what looked like a sandwich on a plate, she backed off eagerly to watch the top of the tank in action.

But he didn't even touch the sides where the black little box locks were. Rather, she heard a click, and a little square opening, the size of a large shoe box, opened up above her. Through the square she could see the rippling image of the man's long face lit up by the green lighting of the tank. At the edge of the tank was a ladder, which she could see the dark shine of his shoes from the third rung up.

Before he did something stupid, like dropped the sandwich into the tank, she hurried up the square and broke through the surface of the water. About a foot of air was left between the top of the tank and the water level.

He watched her warily as she reached up to the box. His eyes said, quite clearly, that any funny business and he'd shove her back in. She didn't doubt it, he had to have at least eighty pounds over her.

"Don't worry, I don't have any super powers or anything." With a helpful beat of her tail, she lifted herself through the little box to lever herself up by her elbows. Already she could tell that her hips, widened by the growth of additional muscles that made up where her body became fish, would have a nigh impossible time fitting through the little box.

She tried blowing on her hands to dry them a bit before reaching out to take up the sandwich. Peanut butter and jelly. She hated peanut butter. But, with a wrinkling of her nose, she shoved it in anyways. Hunger was hunger, after all.

All the while, he watched her from the side of his tank, leaning against his elbows. Occasionally she could catch whiffs of his breath as it blew towards her smelling strongly of cooked cabbage. It made her skin crawl.

"Do you mind?" she asked, glaring pointedly at the small space he kept between them.

He didn't move, however.

When she had finished her sandwich in record time, she was about to duck back down into the tank (just in order to avoid him), when he stopped her with a quiet question of whether she was still hungry. When she said, rather guiltily, that yes, she was, he took the plate and waited for her to slip back down into the tank before latching the little door close and heading back down the ladder.

No sooner had he reached the door when Mr. Handsome-but-Heartless returned, this time with a small quirk to his mouth. That's what had to be what bugged her the most about this guy. Though all his actions from before stated he was excited, he didn't really smile. Not once. And those dark blue eyes of his didn't betray his thoughts, not a single one. It was like he was a robot.

He couldn't have been much older than her, though, which got her wondering what he was doing on the boat. It was only April, after all. Wouldn't he have school? If he still went to school, that was.

With a squeak of wheels, he dragged over a chair from a desk in the corner to the side of the tank. She held still, doing her best to match the same stoniness as him.

Once at the glass, he sat down and propped his feet on the small platform holding up the tank.

"I believe I'm gathered enough now. Ready to answer some questions?"

She could have punched him. "No, but you're going to ask them anyways."

"True." He flipped open to a blank page and readied his pen, those blue eyes to her. "So, Miss talking mermaid, what shall we call you by?"

"Mai. And you must be Johnny Asshole."

He didn't even blink. "No last name?"

"Like I'd give you my last name."

"Why? Because I could trace it back to your family?"

"I already told you, I have foster parents. Any family I have is dead, unless you plan on digging up a bunch of dead people too. Wouldn't put it past your royal arrogance."

Again, not even a twitch. If anything, that little quirk of a smile returned to his mouth. "A little early in our acquaintance to be giving me nicknames, don't you think?"

"Asshole."

He just nodded, and wrote something else down that she couldn't see through the glass. "So, Mai, you say you've been on land before. How is that?"

"Because I'm human. I was born human, raised human, I'm a perfectly ordinary girl, thank you very much."

"Except for the fact you're now in my tank with a goldfish's ass."

"Excuse me, I resent your language!"

His smile widened and he made a 'hmmph' of humorless laughter. "Are you the only one who can say 'ass' then?"

"Only because that's what you are, keeping me in here like the heartless kidnapper you are."

"I didn't kidnap you. You swam into my net. I had only been fishing for the crab you squashed on your arrival. It was your luck that, out of all the crab fishers, you should stumble upon the one who was actually researching mermaids at the time. But, I digress. So you say you are human?"

But she had hardly heard and was staring at this guy. Did he say he was...researching mermaids? Wait wait, if he was the one who—so this tank was prepared for—did he own this boat?

She took a look around the tank once more. Then she had to smile.

"Wait, are you saying you had this tank ready for a mermaid?" When he just continued to sit there, pen poised over his notebook for her answer to his question, she gave a bubbly snort. "You're nutters."

"Says the mermaid."

"Hey! I didn't actually believe in that crap until I started growing scales and gills!"

His expression vanished behind his bangs as he scribbled some more down. "And when did this happen?"

"Last month—wait, is this your dad's tank or something? How'd you get this boat?"

"I bought it and then had the tank installed. How quickly did the change come on?"

But she was squinting out at the surrounding room, hoping to see more past the line where the tank light gave way to shadows, but all she could make out were polished wood floors and that lone window. "So, you're some rich spoiled boy who used his allowance to go mermaid hunting? I've heard of that fettish, but never known anyone who'd actually go through with it."

At last, some real emotion shone on his face when it flashed with irritation and he tapped the corner of his notebook harshly on the tank glass.

"For your information, its part of my career, and for future information, the last time my parents funded anything for me was when I was starting college six years ago. If you'll come back to me-"

"Six years ago?!"

He gave a grunt of annoyance. "Look, you're the one being investigated right now, so if you'll shut up and pay attention, I'd appreciate it."

But almost as though to purposefully aggravate him further, the door flipped open and the tall Asian man came back in, this time with two more sandwiches on the plate. At the food, Mai lost all interest and swam too far from the glass to hear another word the young man said. For a minute, it looked as though he were about to frustrate her dream of food by sending the taller man back, but after he spoke a few words, her interrogator allowed him to head up the ladder once more and open the lid of the tank, which she popped out of the moment it was open.

"Thanks!"

The tall man gave her a sincere, warm smile, then headed back down the ladder. She had just taken her first few bites of her, gratefully, tuna sandwich this time, when the younger man replaced him, his cool mask once more on, but his notebook forgotten.

"Answer my question, Mai, or I'll take those sandwiches."

With a scowl she wrapped her arms around the plate protectively. "Fine! But there isn't much to tell."

And there really wasn't. It had all started, just as she said. She woke up one morning itchy and feverish to find scales growing on her hips. As the days went by, the scales spread, she grew more and more uncomfortable, and more unnerved. Her parents had taken her to the doctor, who had pulled out some crap from his butt about it being a severe case of eczema (since the scales had been red in the beginning), and sent her home with a prescription. But, not only did the prescription make her more sick, but she found out after wards that the only time she was comfortable was when she was taking a bath.

"Foster parents don't much care to have a kid on hand that's sick all the time," she said. "Bad for finances, so, since the baths helped, I just slept in the bath at night and wore long sleeves during the day. It worked pretty good until I woke up one morning with a freaking fish tail."

He frowned. "You just woke up like that? Didn't it hurt?"

"Of course it hurt! Like hell! What do you think having your legs meld together and gills bust out of your sides feels like? Tickles?"

He didn't look the least bit apologetic. "Did your guardians find you then?"

"Nah. I fell out of the tub, too freaked out to scream and grabbed some towels. Then..." she hesitated, trying to gather her thoughts. Changing back always blurred a bit in her memory. "My tail just...fell apart and I had weird, scaley legs again. Sort of doesn't take you long after that to figure out that you turn into a mermaid in the water. Think they had a TV show about that once..."

But Mr. Handsome-but-Heartless broke through her thought. "You said you ran away. Were you discovered?"

She gave him a droll stare. "I'm not an idiot, you know. What do you think two normal people would do if they found out the kid they let into their house turned into a fish freak?" She didn't much like living there anyways, but not like she was going to tell him that.

As he looked off somewhere over her shoulder, obviously deep in thought, she took the chance to inhale the last of her sandwiches. Man, this whole transforming and swimming about stuff really took it out of a person. Before all this she had thought she had quite the normal appetite.

Licking her fingers (three sandwiches just barely filled her), she mused (both to herself and him), "I wonder if I'm some sort of shape shifter or something."

"There's no such thing."

She raised an eyebrow at him. "What, are you some sort of expert or something?"

"As a matter of fact, yes. I am. My last case had been shape shifters. My research proved that the ability to change ones shape so drastically is not physically or chemically possible among endoskeletal creatures, especially those who hold a gestational period of-"

"Alright! Nerd down! I get the idea. You're one of those geniuses. So you're, what, thirty something and just got a baby face?"

But he had already started down the ladder, his attention far from her. It irked her to no end that he had the indecency to kidnap her and nag her ceaselessly, just to turn around without even so much as a thank you, acting as though he hadn't been talking at all.

"What, I don't even get a treat for that?"

But he didn't answer. Just walked off back to where he had left his notebook and pen to allow his tall companion to come up and give her an apologetic smile before gingerly pushing down at her head. With an angry scowl she let him push her back into the tank and click the little door close once more.

"You're not even going to let me out? I told you, I turn back to normal if you—"

"And let you run away before I can even finish my tests?"

He straightened from his crouched position on the floor where he had been writing to give her the same blank, cold stare.

"I would think even you would want to know what you are."

"Then I won't run away! Just let me out of this stupid tank! This isn't humane at all!"

"Sorry," he didn't sound sorry at all, "but I don't think I can trust you just yet."

She gaped at him as he sat down next to his assistant and readied his notebook.

"I have a few more questions for you. And don't worry, in a few days we'll reach the lab where I can finish my tests and you'll be free to head on your way...wherever that was."

In other words, he intended to keep her in this tank for days, who knew how many. Her, a normal girl who just happened to have a problem growing fins. He didn't even wonder about her comfort, bathroom, sleep, or otherwise. He was just going to keep her in there like some exotic pet!

Bastard.

 


	6. Canned Beans Taste Better With Mermaids

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kazuya gloats a bit over some beans and then refuses to let Mai go. Jerk. SANDWICHES.

" _The Fiji mermaid (also Feejee mermaid) was an object comprising the torso and head of a juvenile monkey sewn to the back half of a fish. It was a common feature of sideshows, where it was presented as the mummified body of a creature that was supposedly half mammal and half fish, a version of a mermaid." -_ -Steven C Levi, " _Western Folklore"_

Mai the mermaid proved to be unresponsive after that. Either she had backed up enough that she couldn't hear him or she just didn't answer.

That didn't stop him for searching for new things to record and whatever evidence he could find to store away as proof. He talked to her for a bit about allowing him to pull off one of her scales, but she gave him a look so venomous, he didn't know if he dared it without any proper supplies to sedate her, otherwise she might drown him or Lin in the process.

He took a list of the ingredients of what the sandwiches had contained to take record of her diet. He wrote such detail descriptions of her anatomy that his hand ached after he was done. Then he took up his camera and was sure to take pictures from every angle, despite her attempts to wriggle to the farthest corner away from him and hide herself in a ball.

It was then that Lin put a hand on his shoulder.

"That's enough."

Kazuya's knee-jerk reaction was to slap his assistant's hand away. Never before had he captured a live specimen of his mythological studies. How could Lin think that he had taken enough? But then his eyes fell on the mermaid, who visibly trembled in the water. Stream after stream of bubbles floated up from where she had hidden her head beneath her arms.

He lowered his camera.

"They're just pictures."

But neither Lin nor the mermaid responded. Annoyed, he capped his lens and went to gather up his notes.

"Check her locks before you go, will you?"

Lin bowed his head in affirmation.

With that, Kazuya closed the door behind him and stepped out into the last dregs of sunset. The sky had been redone in silver blues underlain with gold, which reflected on the dark waters like molten metal, but compared to the prize of his mermaid, it was nothing to him.

He barely noticed the crew whispering together on their side of the table that night at dinner. The food prepared from boxes and cans tasted better than usual, and he found himself ravenous. Afterwards, he took a long shower, where he imagined underwater cities of coral and crystal where merpeople had built their own society. It would be like the discovery of life on other planets. Mankind all over the world would be introduced to their underwater brethren, and Kazuya Shibuya would be remembered for all time as the man who brought together the uniting of merfolk and landfolk, legend and fact, dreams and reality.

And it all waited for him in that tank.

He could have sung (which was very unlike himself, to the extreme). After showering and downing his evening tea, he didn't bother sleeping, but made a beeline to the ballroom. He passed the rarely seen fourth and fifth crew members: twin brothers, who worked the kitchen and maintenance, and had the worst case of social anxiety he had ever met. Sea spray misted across his skin from a moon painted ocean, and for the first time he thought he could finally comprehend the romance of the ocean.

Then he opened the door-

To find a pale skinned girl with her back to him, wearing nothing more than an orange and pink flower bikini.

She whirled around, her messy short hair catching to her eyelashes. Her hands flew up to her chest.

"Don't throw me back in! I won't run, please!"

But he just stared at her. His eyes went down to the copper scales lining the front of her shins and thighs like a layer of metal plating. The rest of the skin, up to where it ran beneath her bikini bottom and to her hips, was pink and raw looking, as though sunburnt, and her knees shook.

"I won't run..."

Kazuya closed the door behind him. When the snap made her jump, he sighed. "Stop your whining. If there's anything I really hate most in this world, its whining."

Locking the door behind him, he made his way towards her, shoulders back, masking his the tremor in his stomach. He knew so little about her. She could have lied or emitted something that day, so for all he knew, she had a self-defense mechanism that could leave him helpless. After all, merpeople had done so well to keep themselves in legend since the beginning of history. In his excitement, he had acted the fool, he should have brought Lin with him.

But, taking in her pink legs and the way they trembled beneath her, Kazuya found himself softened ever so slightly. He didn't think of himself as the compassionate type. Pity opened you up to be taken advantage of and scammed, both by people and the wiles of nature. Yet standing there, petite, mostly naked, shivering, and with those doe-like eyes wide with fear...

He stopped with only a yard between them. Cocking his head to the side, he leaned a hand on his belt loop and kept his eyes to her face.

He mentally shook himself. What in the world was he thinking?

"Back in the tank."

"No! Can't I at least have a prison with a bathroom?"

He blinked. That hadn't even crossed his mind. And yet, he could only respond with, "This isn't a prison."

"Oh, stop kidding yourself, you're keeping me as your guinea pig. Put chains on me, tie me up, but at least give me a place to sleep and a bathroom. I'll even pee in a cup, if you want me too."

Somehow, urine samples mixed with the crystalline dream of merfolk utopia still floating around in his head crashed into each other, and for the first time in a very long time, Kazuya found himself with his head thrown back in laughter.

What the hell. She was just a girl, after all. What was he so afraid of?

Once he caught his breath, he leveled his gaze at her, the back of his head hurting from the force of his smirk.

"How could I forget. Fine fine, come on. I'll give you a room to sleep in. It's not like you have anywhere else to go since you ran away from home, eh?"

She looked utterly confused, and a tad bit worried. But he could still feel the remains of his humor in his stomach. A girl who could turn into a mermaid, and he had almost forgotten to give her access to a toilet. Urine samples indeed.

As he let her out of the room, he heard her say, in shock disbelief, "You're bipolar, aren't you? Schizo? Just plain mental?"

"Whatever you want. There's got to be something wrong with me. After all, I already have looks and the brain, I can't be perfect."

"You're a narcissist then. Mr. Narcissist."

"The names Kazuya Shibuya, actually."

"Like I care, I've fallen in love with this realization. Narcissist. Naru the narcissist."

A mermaid giving him nicknames? How odd.

As expected, Lin waited at the door for them. As his assistant and, secretly, his hired bodyguard, Lin was never far from reach.

"Lin, I would appreciate it if you led Mai to one of the spare rooms."

Lin bowed.

"Oh, and Mai?"

"What?"

"If you should try to escape, you really will be traveling in the tank." He smiled dryly. "And that cute little door you wiggled out of will be locked and melted shut. No toilet. No sandwiches."

She visibly paled. Then, just as quickly, she turned red.

"You really are an asshole! What kind of guy captures girls and locks them up in a tank?"

"I'd be careful who you're calling an asshole. Lin here knows several types of martial arts and I'm not too picky about where I store my mermaid."

"Fine! Narcissist!"

 


	7. Hanging Your Privates Over Spiders

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kazuya let's Mai stay in an unused old guest room, but she has little time to enjoy it as the crew aren't what they seem.

" _O train me not, sweet mermaid, with thy note,_

_To drown me in thy sister's flood of tears!"_

_\- William Shakespeare, The Comedy of Errors_

The cabin had a bathroom, all right, but not much else. A bed (a mattress on the floor that looked twice her age), and some wires sticking from the wall that suggested there had once been an entertainment center there. The room had a fine layer of dust, and she approached the bathroom cautiously. Just as she suspected, every spare corner had been claimed by one kind of spider or another. She didn't even want to lift up the lid to the toilet, let alone hang her privates into the questionable abyss when she finally had to go.

"It's perfectly usable."

Naru (she hadn't even bothered to commit his name to memory when he had given it to her), stood in all his tall, dark, arrogant handsomeness in the doorway of the room. Even as she turned to consider kneeing him in the crotch and making a run for it, she spotted more spiders hanging out in the corners.

"Couldn't you have bothered to clean this place before heading out?"

"I got the boat on discount, on a tight schedule, so I only had the necessary spaces cleaned out. This is a spare room."

"I'm so honored."

"Hey, there's always the tank. I am extremely curious to see this transformation of yours."

Heat rose up to her face in flames. She couldn't even think of a proper comeback to that.

"Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some papers to attend to. Lots to do. Lin will be at the door, should you need anyone."

And like that, he was gone. Probably for the best, as she had already started stepping forward for the inevitable crotch slam. She didn't have to pull on the doorknob to know that it was lock, as she heard the click and watched as her new guard tried it for himself. Not to mention a particularly fat daddy long-leg had made his home in the curve of the handle.

For a full five minutes, Mai stood there, frozen in the cold, spider infested room, wearing only her bikini. The jerk scientist hadn't even bothered to leave her things with her.

She could have cried. By all regards, she couldn't see how this could get any worse. Not only was she alone and a freak, but she had been captured by a man whose every intention would be to turn her into his lab rat. She'd be plastered on TV as the first mermaid, force to painfully change back and forth naked just for observation, poked, prodded, trapped...

Had it been too much to ask for? To be free?

Shivering, she gingerly sat down on the old mattress and pulled her knees up to her chin. Her cool scales pressed against the back of her forearms.

She should have never left the McGomrey's, even if Jason had been a creep. At the same time, the deep side of the ocean didn't seem as scary anymore compared to the possibly arachnid filled abyss of the toilet.

As the night grew deeper, her hopes that Naru would return with some blankets vanished. While cool ocean water had been no problem, cool air wrecked just as much havoc on her as any normal human girl. She even dared to curl up on the dusty mattress top to conserve heat. When at long last she heard a click and the rumble of what was unmistakably a heater, she jumped up in search of a vent in the darkness. The powdery, cobweb feel of the floor sent chills up her spine, but at long last her toes brushed across warm grating. Teeth chattering, she pressed as much of her body as physically possible to the delicious warmth and laid her tired head against the floor.

"...snotty little rich boy."

Mai frowned. Voices? From below? Well, he had brought her pretty high up.

"Can't wait to see his face. Think we should tell him fairies took her away?"

"No, you idiot, fairies don't take mermaids. You should tell him Poseidon did it. He'd believe that."

A soft murmur of laughter. Mai's blood went cold. Her fingers felt numb against the dusty floor.

"Watch it. Paranormal investigator or not, you should know by now that he's not the type to be fooled by pranks. He lives to rat those out, mind you."

"Or so he says."

Another man chuckled and echoed, "so he says."  
"Nah, I read some of them papers. Kid's sharp."

"Well 'course he's sharp. He got this far, didn't he? But blimey, who'da thought he'd find the real deal."

"A nice looker too. Pity her girls weren't as free as they could be, eh? Wonder if I can sneak in before the boys get here-"

"Don't even think about it, bastard, I don't want you masturbating all over the floor, that's disgusting."

With a shudder she unstuck her ear and sat up to dig her fingers into her shoulders. Her heart pounded a painful, icky rhythm against her collarbone. A cold sweat prickled her brow. She couldn't let them—Naru was bad enough, but being at their mercy had to be worse. At least Naru hadn't blinked an eye at her bikini. Perhaps he was gay. Oh please, let him be gay.

Knees weak, she felt her way towards the thin light from the tiny, musty window of the door and knocked on the glass.

"Guard? Guard guy?"

To her surprise, the door opened, but not to the tall Chinese man she expected.

Her captor blinked at her, a pile of folded blankets in his arms. He got over his shock quickly, however, and grinned.

"Do I get a tip for room service?"

His tall bodyguard stood behind him, leaning against the railing. Behind him she could see the ocean, and not for the first time, it called for her, metallic in the moonlight. But she yanked her gaze back to him and pointed below.

"You've got a mutiny, Captain."

Naru frowned. "Excuse me?"

"I was cold, so I curled up on the floor around the heater and I heard them talking. They're planning on stealing me or something, and I'm telling you this not because I like you, because I wish you'd just drop into a pit of—of lava or something, but..." she gulped. "They sound like perverts."

For a moment, he just looked at her, black eyebrows heavy over his eyes in thought. Then he handed her the blankets, which she took in confusion.

"All men are perverts," he said, unfazed.

She couldn't believe this man. That's what he decides to say after that statement? "Aren't you going to do something?"

"Like what? Leave them to my boat so they can steal it along with all my hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of equipment? No. I'll watch. Should be fun to see a bunch of middle aged do-nothings try to get past Lin."

The body guard in question didn't smile at this. She had to admit he looked rather formidable. And her legs did hurt a lot from the cold, and from the change. The mattress hadn't been too bad either.

"Oh, and I got this," from besides the door he took out a broom with a dustpan clicked onto it. "Your spider weapon."

Her death wish for him grew ever so weaker as she took the broom from him, and even more when he reached passed her to flick on the light switch, asking her if mermaid's liked the dark. She didn't mention that she had been too terrified of reaching her hand into a spider's nest to search the walls for a light switch.

When he turned to leave, she reached out without thinking and grabbed hold of his jacket. He turned to give her a quizzical look. Even with the blue of his eyes hidden by the darkness, his hair fell in such a way across his eyes as to accentuate their handsome shape. She really had never seen such a beautiful boy in person, let alone talk to one. She had never had much trust for guys.

"What?" he asked, in his usual aloof way, though his words said otherwise. "Would you like some clothes too? I can probably lend you a shirt."

What had happened to the heartless jerk who had just let her freeze for hours in the freakiest room on the ship? "Could you, um, stay? Just while I clear out the spiders?"

When he still gave her that quizzical stare, the tall, quiet Lin stepped past him. The room looked even smaller compared to his height. When he reached out his hand for the broom, she obediently gave it up, hot with a little more than shame as the man went to town on the spiderwebs, sending the insects flying.

Naru leaned against the doorway. A fleeting thought of escape slid past her, but she knew, while not a martial artist, the young scientist still had height, weight, and muscle above her.

Instead, she tried not to watch too closely as the tiny eight legged cretins ran for their lives.

The ship went black. The whirr of the heater and generator died out, and all other sounds faded away with the light.

With the new quiet came the slap of waves against the boat's sides.

She stiffened when a warm hand clasped tight around her arm.

"Don't even think about it."

It took her a bit to realize that Naru meant not to run. She had stupidly been more terrified of spiders running across her feet in the dark, or worse, into her hair. Then it came back to her—the crewmen, the pervs-

"Lin,"

The lanky silhouette of Naru's assistant stepped passed her and onto the deck. Naru had taken hold of her other arm, his grip tight enough to be painful.

"You're hurting me-"

"Shh."

"I thought you said we had nothing to worry about?"

"Just shut up and get back into the room."

He shoved her in. She lost her balance and fell onto the floor with an 'oomph!"

Naru shut the door behind him, leaving Lin outside. Dozens of questions popped to the tip of her tongue, but at the sound of footsteps, she swallowed them.

A shout, followed by a scrabble of footsteps—which stopped with a clap of a gun. A half-born scream popped out of her mouth before she could slap her hands over it. Her knees slapped together so hard the crash of her knee-caps ran all the way to her toes. Naru had jumped as well, but didn't move.

The door slammed open. A broad shadow blocked the moonlight from them.

"Ah, Mr. Shibuya. Figured you couldn't be far."

"Charles, what's the meaning of this?"

"That's what you British folk don't get: there is such a thing as doing something just for the curiosity of it. Oy, Fernie, girl's in here. She's already shifted, how nice is that?"

Mai paled. Why did they talk like that? Like they already knew?

"Be there in a second. Jackie Chan's still twitching. Just give me a mo-"

Pow. The second gunshot.

She could hardly breathe. All at once she remembered the kind smile the tall guardian had made as he gave her sandwiches. She couldn't believe that she would be witness to a man being shot to death, even if it was only by sound.

Besides her, Naru fell deathly still and silent. She couldn't make out anything past his fringe of dark hair.

The bear of a man stepped forward. The cabin floor shivered with his weight.

"So, Mr. Shibuya, make this easy for us and give up the girl quietly and we might just consider radio in a copter for your assistant...oh, and for you."

Naru said nothing. Mai leaned closer and clutched at his sleeve. She wanted to beg with him, plead, but her voice escaped her. But what connection did he have to her? He had just met her. Surely he would value his and his assistant's life above hers. Surely she couldn't allow it to be anything else. No one would be dying for her.

The Captain snorted. "Whatever. Oi! Fern! Get your fat ass-"

Naru's sleeve tore out of her fingers. The young scientist became a blur—no, a bullet, which shot straight for the Captain's face. With a loud 'crack' the man toppled like a mountain and Mai found herself yanked so ferociously over his unconscious form by Naru that she nearly flew. In fact, she didn't even touch the ground until she hit the banister and had the breath knocked out of her.

"What the-"

Naru's momentum didn't stop there. With agility she didn't know a human body could contain, and still with an iron-like grasp around her wrist, he pulled them both over the banister.

They fell, leaving her breath and the wounded Asian guardian behind. Night rush past, colder than any ocean, rich with salt, brine, and starlight.

Till the ocean reached up and swallowed them whole.

 


	8. Rescue by Mermaid Ain't Romantic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mai performs some hypothermia first aid.

“ _No siren did ever so charm the ear of the listener as the listening ear has charmed the soul of the siren”_

_\--Henry Taylor (British Author, 1800-1866)_

 

The jerk she had christened 'Naru the Narcissist' felt like ice. In the white moonlight she could just make out the dark coloration of his gray lips. His breathing had become shallow, and he wouldn't open his eyes.

She shook him, to which he opened his eyes just a crack. A wave came back to lick at his feet and her fins.

“Don't tell me the water was that cold! Are you passing out on me? Hypothermia or whatever it is?”

He blinked dolefully at her. “H-hypo...thermia.”

“You have to move, asshole, I can't carry you out of the water. I'm a mermaid, remember?”

He just stared at her. Then, with a weak frown, he said, “I’m not that cold. Just tired.”

“Like hell you're just tired, don't you dare fall asleep! Don't make me hit you!”

He grumbled something that sounded suspiciously like an insult before closing his eyes.

She slapped him. Hard.

“What do you not understand that I can't carry you? Get up!”

He reached a hand to his face, as though shocked by the show of force. “Wha...?”

_“Stand up!”_

Groaning like a kid asked to get up too early, he turned onto his stomach and, with trembling arms, pushed himself to his hands and knees. Mai then watched in despair as he crawled his way up shore, misplacing his hands and nearly tripping over himself a few times. Biting her lip, she pulled herself after him, using her tail the best she could to push herself onto dry ground. She had to dry off, _now_. Just how quickly could someone die of hypothermia? Didn't that only happen to people in the Arctic? Or in the winter? Crap, why hadn't she watched more Discovery channel?

Lucky for her, he didn't collapse once he hit dry ground. He kept going till the top of his head hit the rocky cliff-side of the beach she had pulled them up on before doing that.

She fidgeted around as she waited for her fin to dry, but the night air was cold. Thus, she kept moving, hoping the dry sand would brush off enough of the water, and gathered pieces of sea wood just in case a miracle occurred and she figured out how to start a fire with her bare hands.

“This is what you get for kidnapping me,” she said, heart in her throat. “Are you listening? I'm calling you a jerk! You better not be asleep!”

Naru didn't answer.

She opened her mouth to shout again when a familiar pang of lightening doubled her over. For the first time, she eagerly accepted the change. Her consciousness blurred as her legs fell apart and her fins and gills retracted. Panting, she scrambled to Naru's side and reached for his face. Still cold. And his eyes had closed. She cursed.

“What do you do, what do you do, um...wet clothes. Wet clothes make it worse.”

Without another thought, she went to tugging at his stupid rich boy sweater. It wasn't till she had unbuttoned his shirt and ripped that off that she finally got a good luck at just exactly what she was doing.

His body more or less matched perfectly with his face. Smooth skinned and trim without being over muscled. The hair on his chest was a fine, black fuzz that curled from the water.

She stared. She was stripping a...really attractive man...

“Ugh, who's going to _die,_ you imbecile!” With a slap on both her cheeks for good measure, she continued tugging at his clothes, forcing herself to focus on nothing else until only his boxers remained, and no amount of death threats could convince her to take that off.

“Alright, alright, um...body heat, yeah.” She pawed herself for her temperature, eager to find herself at least warmer than him, then awkwardly sprawled down beside him. Even as she shivered in the night are, she scooped sand onto them, careful to keep as much of her skin pressed to him. In part, she was grateful for the distraction of making their makeshift bed, as it prevented her from thinking too much about the feel of him against her, or the fact that her bikini bottom had been lost in the ocean when she transformed.

If only the idiot hadn't taken her bag, they wouldn't be in this bad of a situation. She had waterproof matches in there and everything.

“If you die it's your own fault,” she mumbled at his unconscious face.

Not that she wanted him dead. Horribly maimed, but not dead.

It took a while and made every muscle in her body ache like mad, but when she finally finished with the sand tomb, it actually was quite toasty. She could even see herself sleeping like this if it wasn't for the hot, passed out, probably dying male specimen of a jerk pressed up against her. But she was being a child. This wasn't anything sexual of any kind, this was the natural treatment for hypothermia—as well as the only one she had. And it wasn't like he or anyone else would suppose anything from this if they knew the situation.

Really, she had no reason for her face to be this hot. She didn't even like the guy.

“I'm so nice. So freaking, ef'ing nice. You hear that Naru? I don't even like you and I'm trying to save your life. You owe me a burger when we get out of this. Several of them. And a strawberry milkshake.”

At least the yacht lights couldn't be seen. She had purposely swam to the other side of the line of land that framed the beaches of Texas. Nothing was here but grass, rocks, and shallow beaches. Still, the hairs on her neck wouldn't go down, and her ears still rung from gunshots.

Who had been those men, really? Mermaid traders of sorts? They had known of her transformation. Obviously Naru hadn't, so had he just been used then?

Was that why she hadn't been able to find any others like herself?

The young man at her side shifted, sending tiny streams of sand between them. He mumbled incoherently, then settled back down. She was just wondering if he trimmed his eyebrows to be so smooth and perfect when the scientist brought his face through the last inch separating them and nuzzled the bridge of his nose against her chin.

Chills shot up her spine. She glared at him.

“You better really be asleep and dying.”

He didn't respond. She sighed and went back to picking out the features on his face. When he was awake, she wouldn't be able to examine him this closely. Not that she wanted to...but she could appreciate, right? That's what normal girls did, right?

Yet, even appreciating brought a familiar ache to her chest. He really was finely made. Anyone could have seen that.

And she found herself hating him more because of it.

_Please, wake up soon._


	9. Hypothermia with a Hot Guy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Read the chapter title please

“ _No siren did ever so charm the ear of the listener as the listening ear has charmed the soul of the siren”_

_\--Henry Taylor (British Author, 1800-1866)_

 

The jerk she had christened 'Naru the Narcissist' felt like ice. In the white moonlight she could just make out the dark coloration of his gray lips. His breathing had become shallow, and he wouldn't open his eyes.

She shook him, to which he opened his eyes just a crack. A wave came back to lick at his feet and her fins.

“Don't tell me the water was that cold! Are you passing out on me? Hypothermia or whatever it is?”

He blinked dolefully at her. “H-hypo...thermia.”

“You have to move, asshole, I can't carry you out of the water. I'm a mermaid, remember?”

He just stared at her. Then, with a weak frown, he said, “I’m not that cold. Just tired.”

“Like hell you're just tired, don't you dare fall asleep! Don't make me hit you!”

He grumbled something that sounded suspiciously like an insult before closing his eyes.

She slapped him. Hard.

“What do you not understand that I can't carry you? Get up!”

He reached a hand to his face, as though shocked by the show of force. “Wha...?”

_“Stand up!”_

Groaning like a kid asked to get up too early, he turned onto his stomach and, with trembling arms, pushed himself to his hands and knees. Mai then watched in despair as he crawled his way up shore, misplacing his hands and nearly tripping over himself a few times. Biting her lip, she pulled herself after him, using her tail the best she could to push herself onto dry ground. She had to dry off, _now_. Just how quickly could someone die of hypothermia? Didn't that only happen to people in the Arctic? Or in the winter? Crap, why hadn't she watched more Discovery channel?

Lucky for her, he didn't collapse once he hit dry ground. He kept going till the top of his head hit the rocky cliff-side of the beach she had pulled them up on before doing that.

She fidgeted around as she waited for her fin to dry, but the night air was cold. Thus, she kept moving, hoping the dry sand would brush off enough of the water, and gathered pieces of sea wood just in case a miracle occurred and she figured out how to start a fire with her bare hands.

“This is what you get for kidnapping me,” she said, heart in her throat. “Are you listening? I'm calling you a jerk! You better not be asleep!”

Naru didn't answer.

She opened her mouth to shout again when a familiar pang of lightening doubled her over. For the first time, she eagerly accepted the change. Her consciousness blurred as her legs fell apart and her fins and gills retracted. Panting, she scrambled to Naru's side and reached for his face. Still cold. And his eyes had closed. She cursed.

“What do you do, what do you do, um...wet clothes. Wet clothes make it worse.”

Without another thought, she went to tugging at his stupid rich boy sweater. It wasn't till she had unbuttoned his shirt and ripped that off that she finally got a good luck at just exactly what she was doing.

His body more or less matched perfectly with his face. Smooth skinned and trim without being over muscled. The hair on his chest was a fine, black fuzz that curled from the water.

She stared. She was stripping a...really attractive man...

“Ugh, who's going to _die,_ you imbecile!” With a slap on both her cheeks for good measure, she continued tugging at his clothes, forcing herself to focus on nothing else until only his boxers remained, and no amount of death threats could convince her to take that off.

“Alright, alright, um...body heat, yeah.” She pawed herself for her temperature, eager to find herself at least warmer than him, then awkwardly sprawled down beside him. Even as she shivered in the night are, she scooped sand onto them, careful to keep as much of her skin pressed to him. In part, she was grateful for the distraction of making their makeshift bed, as it prevented her from thinking too much about the feel of him against her, or the fact that her bikini bottom had been lost in the ocean when she transformed.

If only the idiot hadn't taken her bag, they wouldn't be in this bad of a situation. She had waterproof matches in there and everything.

“If you die it's your own fault,” she mumbled at his unconscious face.

Not that she wanted him dead. Horribly maimed, but not dead.

It took a while and made every muscle in her body ache like mad, but when she finally finished with the sand tomb, it actually was quite toasty. She could even see herself sleeping like this if it wasn't for the hot, passed out, probably dying male specimen of a jerk pressed up against her. But she was being a child. This wasn't anything sexual of any kind, this was the natural treatment for hypothermia—as well as the only one she had. And it wasn't like he or anyone else would suppose anything from this if they knew the situation.

Really, she had no reason for her face to be this hot. She didn't even like the guy.

“I'm so nice. So freaking, ef'ing nice. You hear that Naru? I don't even like you and I'm trying to save your life. You owe me a burger when we get out of this. Several of them. And a strawberry milkshake.”

At least the yacht lights couldn't be seen. She had purposely swam to the other side of the line of land that framed the beaches of Texas. Nothing was here but grass, rocks, and shallow beaches. Still, the hairs on her neck wouldn't go down, and her ears still rung from gunshots.

Who had been those men, really? Mermaid traders of sorts? They had known of her transformation. Obviously Naru hadn't, so had he just been used then?

Was that why she hadn't been able to find any others like herself?

The young man at her side shifted, sending tiny streams of sand between them. He mumbled incoherently, then settled back down. She was just wondering if he trimmed his eyebrows to be so smooth and perfect when the scientist brought his face through the last inch separating them and nuzzled the bridge of his nose against her chin.

Chills shot up her spine. She glared at him.

“You better really be asleep and dying.”

He didn't respond. She sighed and went back to picking out the features on his face. When he was awake, she wouldn't be able to examine him this closely. Not that she wanted to...but she could appreciate, right? That's what normal girls did, right?

Yet, even appreciating brought a familiar ache to her chest. He really was finely made. Anyone could have seen that.

And she found herself hating him more because of it.

_Please, wake up soon._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you got a mo, check out my first published novel, "Out of Duat," on Amazon! It just came out in hardcopy and on the Kindle!


	10. Denying Attractiveness is Cliche, Dummy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Naru wakes up to a naked mermaid...and lives.

_“Shiloh Pepin, a girl who was born with fused legs, a rare condition often called "mermaid syndrome," and gained a wide following on the Internet and national television, has died. She was 10.” –Huffington Post; March 18, 2010_

Kazuya knew he hadn’t had a hard life. He had everything a child could ever need to grow up happy and healthy: money, loving and attentive parents, intelligence, and a perfectly healthy body. He even had good looks to top it off. He had never had to worry about stupid things like being accepted by others (why would anyone be worried about that smut anyways?), or whether all his needs would be met. His parents also didn’t spoil him, so he learned hard work at an early age.

He attributed his phenomenal success in his field to this fact. But because of this, he couldn’t stand whiners. He believed to his core that anyone who had the time to complain about their circumstances also had the time to do something about it. Because, well, look at him! Look at what he’d achieve with his own power! Why didn’t anyone else do the same? He couldn’t understand it, nor would he stand for it.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t completely blind to how others reacted to this attitude of his. People didn’t like their strife to be talked down to. They wanted all the attention and cry whining they could possibly milk from it, and thus his friends often called him uncompassionate, unsympathetic, and unempathetic. Whether or not this bugged them depended on why they had decided to stay friends with him, whether it be for his power, brains, and influence, or it simply was because they honestly enjoyed being with him—for whatever reason.

However, it was also these reasons that, even though Kazuya had plenty of opportunities, he had never had a serious relationship. Romance and women had everything to do with emotions and whining to the extreme. Even if he ever did accept the feelings of a girl (and even, at some times, fancied himself attracted), it soon ended with a crash when said girl realized just how empty Kazuya’s understanding of human suffering was.

Because his life had been easy.

And yet, sometimes, when he let his guard down and is forced to be aware of the gaping hole in his otherwise perfect life, he’d wish it hadn’t been so easy. Suffering was part of the human experience, and Kazuya simply did not understand it, no matter how hard he tried.

It was with suffering in mind that he came to with a pounding headache, grumbling stomach, and aching muscles.

Groaning, he pried open his bleary eyes just to come face to face with a pale, messy haired mermaid. And she was awake.

Such big, shiny eyes. They made him think of warm, sweet things, like hot chocolate after a day of play in the snow.

“Good morning, sleeping asshole.”

He sighed. “Not the most eloquent with manners, are you?”

“Hey, I just saved your life in more ways than one. If anyone should be getting a lecture on manners, it’s you.”

He groaned again and moved his hand to pinch the bridge of his nose, as the conversation was doing nothing for his headache. When the movement sent streams of sand falling past his stomach, he immediately became fully aware of the situation and felt every inch of his skin flush in alarm. And her bikini bottom would have gone missing once she transformed—oh Lord…

Despite every cell in his brain screaming for him to keep it cool and get out of the weird sand tomb before he saw anything, his muscles went ram-rod. He could barely breathe.

On seeing his reaction, Mai also blushed and fidgeted.

“Look, you had hypothermia, it was the only thing I could do, okay? I didn’t do anything!”

He wanted to snap back something witty, but too much of him was still freaking out at the details he could feel of her on his naked front. Thank heaven he still had his boxers, but that didn’t help much at this time. Had he ever been this close to girl? Naked, never. Hugging? Sure, but was this anything like hugging?

She gave him an impatient glare. “Stop staring at me like that and just get out. I can’t until you do.”

“What are you wearing?” Idiot, why did he ask? Obviously nigh close to nothing!

She thought the same thing. “Dummy! Just move! You’re not the only one creeped out by this!”

Somehow, that broke whatever hold shock had on his muscles, and he flew out in a poof of sand. Gal, he could taste the stuff! Then he zoomed in on his dark lump of clothes and scurried over with sand scrubbing parts of his body he didn’t even know sand could get to, and barely maintaining any sort of dignity one could have while only in their trousers.

As he forced on his still wet slacks, the mermaid behind him snickered. “Not that I think you don’t have any morals when it comes to relationships—because I think you just don’t have any morals, but aren’t you freaking out just a little too much? Someone like you has got to have had his fair share of girlfriends.”

“And what about your behavior? How many naked men have you woken up to?”

“None. But it wasn’t like you were naked or that I like you or anything. Stay turned around while I get out. Once I hit the water I’ll give you a shout to know it’s safe to turn around.”

“Why bother? It’s not like I can keep you around anymore.”

This gave her pause. “I’m sorry?”

“Don’t make me repeat myself, I’m irritated enough as it is.”

“Alrighty then. Turn around and I scratch your eyes out.”

“Like I’d be tempted.”

“And that’s the third grader response of the century.”

He wrinkled his nose and snorted. Like he cared. Stupid headache. And why did wet clothes have to feel like sandpaper coming on? Wait. Aw, crap, he’d forgotten to rinse off the sand first. Now it was stuck in there and in the unimaginable places too, gawd, he hated the ocean. Hated the beach, hated the sand, hated the sun and the stinking fish smell of it all—

“Alright. You can turn around. I’m going to check the area for your friends, so get nice and warm before we head off.”

He turned to face her with a frown, “Head off wh---“….

He’d turned around to what could have only been a picture painted by fantasy. The morning sun blazed gold off of the ocean, turning the sky about it pink and white with light. And laying on her stomach in the midst of it, with sunlit gold waves lapping about her, was Mai, her copper scales bright as new pennies and her silk-skirt fins held above her like a curtain canopy. It didn’t matter that her short auburn hair was a wet, stringy mess about her face, or that sandy mud still painted her shoulders, he couldn’t deny it.

She made up the most beautiful scene he had ever seen.

He shook himself. Hard. Wait a second. Mai herself wasn’t all that beautiful, he had been around better. Models, even. And those chubby, short pink legs of hers hadn’t been much to look at, even if they had added to the curve of her hips that went all the way down to her calves and…this was stupid. It was just the whole…mermaid charm.

“Where do you plan on taking me?” He raised a hand to block the sun from his face. It helped with the brilliancy of it all.

“To shore.”

“Where on shore?”

“Do I look like a GPS? You should be grateful that I’m willing to take you at all after you kidnapped me.”

“For the last time, I didn’t kidnap you! You swam into _my_ net!”

“Oh, but did you throw me back into the ocean with a nice apology? Exactly, now tah-tah!”

He shouted something back at her about there being no assigned etiquette to dealing with mermaids, but he nearly forgot all that in being caught up in the fan of sunlit fins and water she made up as she twisted back into the ocean.

Once he was sure she wasn’t about to pop her head back up, he collapsed back onto the sand with a whoosh of breath and put a hand to his aching head. Pretty as it had been, the sun off the water had gone at his eyeballs like knives. He pressed his thumbs into his eyes with a quiet curse. Was this how all hypothermia victims felt after the incident? And why did all his muscles hurt so much? Mai had done all the work last night in getting them away.

Mai returned sooner than she expected to find him sprawled out in the sun with an arm over his eyes. The only reason he knew she was there was because of all the loud splashing she did to get back on shore.

“Hey! Dead guy!”

He inwardly winced. “Mind lowering your hellishly high pitched voice?”

“Oh, sorry, would you rather I left you here? ‘Cause I’m cool with that. That big boat of yours is sure to come back this way eventually. They just turned to go the opposite direction when I spotted them, and I heard one of them talking about taking laps.”

At this he jerked up, wide awake. “Just how close did you get to that boat?” It took him a few blinks to see her clearly, lounging on her belly in the sand a bit from him, her copper tail once more hanging her fins up high in the air and flicking it back and forth like a fan.

“Close enough, why?”

“Do you want to be caught by them?”

“No, but I was careful. And if they see me how they going to catch me, hmm?”

Her idiocy brought a twisted scowl to his face. “Harpoon.”

She blanched. “Y-you guys had h-harpoons—“

“Just don’t be stupid again. We were going to shore, right?”

“What the hell would you have harpoons—“

“If you shut up and take us now I’ll buy you breakfast.”

She sighed heavily and let the hand she had been using to hold up her head drop with a splash in the most recent wave. “Well, yippee, on with the mermaid express. Just turn around while I get back in.”

“Why do I have to turn around?”

“Because I’ll look stupid, okay? You try to get back into the ocean without legs sometime, tell me how cool you feel.”

His migraine gave a nasty throb. He pressed his thumbs to his eyes again. “Whatever. Just hurry up.”

He had purposely pushed the idea of getting back into the freezing ocean to the back of his mind since he woke up. Getting back in to reach where the mermaid waited for him in the shallows took all of his mental training, especially given the way his already pissed off muscles seized up at the touch. Once he had gotten in chest deep, however, his skin had adjusted, and at least it was painful.

Mai put her arms around his chest reluctantly. Despite her clearly platonic intentions, her touch made his stomach do a little squirm that pushed blood up to his cheeks.

 _Great. So she’s somewhat attractive. Not like it’s going to help that attitude much._ After all, she had done more than her fair share of complaining, even if she may have a point with keeping her in a tank. But she had been going nowhere, had nothing, and even didn’t understand the transformation that had come over her. He had made it clear he only wanted to know what she so desperately needed to know herself in order to survive: what was she? And where were all those like her? Hadn’t she seen that?

Yes, his intentions may have been selfish, but it was for both of their benefits. He wasn’t planning on sticking her in a freak show or anything ridiculous like that. And he had fed her. And given her a place to sleep. A warm place at that. Had she had better on the cold ocean floor? She didn’t have to praise it as five star service, but she could have at least been a little less pissy.

Perhaps he hadn’t made that clear.

As he debated on whether or not he cared what she thought of him or whether she had understood his intentions clearly enough, the breathless flight through the ocean left no room for talking. When he wasn’t breathing madly for air he was holding it and clinging for dear life onto the slender body. Out of all the things he could discover about a mermaid, he had never anticipated their speed.

By the time she finally pulled him onto his feet in shallow waters, he wouldn’t have been surprised if hypothermia was about to pull him under again. She seemed to think the same thing, for she tugged on his shirt sleeves and ignored his protests until he stumbled onto the tiny, shallow beach she had found away from public view. Lucky for her the high tide was just heading out, otherwise she never would have.

Sore, shivering, and headache worse than ever, he collapsed onto the sand.

“Keep moving! It’ll keep you warm.”

“W-why do you care?” he grumbled, nearly biting his tongue with his chattering teeth.

She glared at him. “Are you for real? Look, I’m not so much of a bitch to let someone get sick or die. Also, you did make me sandwiches and give me a place to sleep, even if it was crap.”

This caught him so off guard, he almost forgot about how he couldn’t feel his extremities anymore. Wait…so she had noticed?

“Don’t just stare at me, move! I’d rather not cuddle naked in the sand with you again.”

That got him moving, because neither did he. Though his body begged him to curl up in the warm sand and drift off, he pushed to his feet to jog in place. After a minute or so he started some jumping jacks as well as a few laps of their tiny shore.

While he did so, Mai somehow managed to pull herself onto the sand while he wasn’t looking, where she got to work busily covering her hips and legs in sand. It took him a moment to remember that he had promised her breakfast. She couldn’t very well transform back without anything to wear.

On that thought…

He stopped half-way through a lap, hesitant. “Um…what, uh, would you like me to bring back? For breakfast.”

“Clothes would be nice, actually. I’d like to come with you.” She looked up at him from her sand work with a slight frown. “By the way, are you feeling okay? You’ve been looking like you’re in pain ever since I got back.”

Again, he was caught off guard. Had he been that obvious? All he had done was rub his eyes, he hadn’t winced or anything. Though he had snapped at her for yelling out at him from the waves. Perhaps he was thinking too much into this. Yes, he was. He really need to spend more time with people his age, he was getting too use to the mature, professional atmosphere of his older colleagues and employees.

“Headache. I’ll be fine. And I’m only buying you clothes if you promise to let me run some tests on you first.” At the repulsed look on her face, he pushed on. “Look, you can’t live you’re entire life by the shore on your foster dad’s credit card, and if you’ll just let me do the research I could help you find other merfolk. Isn’t that what you set out to do anyways?”

She wrinkled her nose. “Well, yeah, I did think of that, but the way you say ‘run tests’ makes me think of probes and needles and the kind of stuff people do with rocks and dead stuff. And, I don’t think you’ve noticed, but I’m sort of the kind of freak that has the popular stigma of being petrified and stuffed in a jar.”

He groaned. As he had expected. “I said I would take you back once I was done, didn’t I?”

“I hardly know you! You could’ve been lying!”

“I’m not, and even if I was, didn’t you hear those men on the ship? Didn’t you see them shoot…” he hesitated. No, he wasn’t ready to deal with that now. “Look, we’re in this situation together now, and the least we can do is cooperate like adults. I’ll help you, and in return, I’ll get some data for my research. You clearly couldn’t have been luckier than to have me be the one at the end of that crab net.”

For a second, he couldn’t read her expression. It flitted too quickly between anger, something akin to desperation, and then several other feelings too quickly. Then, her face fell blank, she paled, and her shoulders drooped. Without another word she fell back into the sand, dark eyes half-closed and unseeing.

“Mai?”

When she didn’t so much as twitch, he trotted over to her side to shake her a bit. The glazed way her eyes stared at the lower underside of her lids unnerved him, and when he lifted his wrist to her mouth, he felt no breath.

For one of the very rare times in his too-easy life, Kazuya panicked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you got a mo, check out my first published novel, "Out of Duat" on Amazon! It's an ancient Egyptian romance complicated by time-travel and spiced up by necromancy. ^.^ Electronic versions are only $3, but hard copy is available too.


	11. Libraries; Haunt for Hobos and Mermaids

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Naru and Mai try to recuperate at a library (aka, find a way home or not to be hobos), but a library isn't entirely safe. It is public property after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A Christmas present from me to you! "Out of Duat," by T.S. Lowe is FREE from December 16th-20th! So, if you got a mo, drop by Amazon to pick up your free ebook! And thanks again for your support!

_“When you have reached your fifteenth year,” said the grand-mother [mother of the Sea King], “you will have permission to rise up out of the sea, to sit on the rocks in the moonlight, while the great ships are sailing by; and then you will see both forests and towns.”--Hans Christian Anderson, Little Mermaid_

Mai did her best to ignore the young scientist across the table as she happily munched away at her triple patty burger, but it was difficult. She had never met someone who could make a silent treatment so terrifying. Maybe it had to do with the tense way he kept his face completely smooth while his fingers twitched sporadically, or maybe the determined way he ignored all her attempts to talk to him—but no, that was normal enough.

Then maybe it was just because she had seen his face looking like _that_ when she first woke up from her transformation. It had been the first time she had straight up passed out while her legs split, and she blamed her lack of food. Either way, he had had no reason to look like _that._ Like he had just killed someone and was trying to wake up from a dream.

She tried to glance up at him as inconspicuously as possible. He just sat there, chewing his burger, like the traumatic emotions had never happened, though she knew he blamed her, even if he hadn’t said a word since he realized she wasn’t dead. At least he had still brought her back clothes, even if they were just sweats and a T-shirt. Had it been too much to expect underwear? A bra, of course not, but maybe panties? But of course. The arrogant narcissist probably didn’t know anything about women or their sizes.

Three burgers later and a large strawberry milkshake, she couldn’t see how he could keep this up for much longer. But just as she opened her mouth, he spoke.

“We should take care to keep up your calorie intake, if nothing for the transformation’s sake.”

She frowned. He didn’t have to make it sound like that—like she was diabetic or something. Personally, she preferred passing out anyways. It spared her from the unpleasant experience becoming human again was.

“You should also start thinking of ways of how to fend for yourself in the ocean.”

She snorted at this. “What, make a spear out of rocks and sticks and eat raw fish? Yum.”

“Tasteful or not, it’s your life now. You won’t always have someone to buy you burgers.”

“I know, I know.” She sighed and picked up a spork nearby to fiddle with. “I’m just…being a mermaid isn’t as exciting as all the Disney princesses make it out to be. I can’t even swim off the shelf.”

He frowned around his soda straw. “Shelf?”

“You know, where the land drops off in the water to the deep? Freaks me out. Just the fact that you can’t see the bottom, and if you did, it’d be like hanging up two miles in the air.”

“Sounds exciting to me.”

“You’re not the one down there.”

He shrugged. “I’d decide to make it exciting. It’s amazing the things you learn once you just decide to have the guts to step into the unknown. If we’re always afraid of stepping in the dark, we’d never learn anything.”

Though her knee jerk reaction was to call him unfeeling, she stopped. Hadn’t that been what she had been thinking the whole time herself? Besides, this was who she was now. If she never simply decided to take that step, to overcome her fear, she might never meet another of her kind, nor would she ever really understand what it would mean to live in the ocean.

And yet…

She sighed. “Sorry, I’m having a really hard time wanting to live in the ocean. I like it better up here.”

“You can’t really say. You’ve never actually lived in the ocean. But, enough complaining, you’ll get over that hurdle eventually.”

She flinched. “Complaining?”

“For now, finish your milkshake. I don’t care if you are the biggest scientific breakthrough of my career, if you pass out again like that I’m tossing you into the ocean.”

She would have thought he was being funny if he hadn’t looked so live-or-die serious just then. “Oh, come on, I just passed out. It’s not like I puked on your Steve Martin shoes or anything, have some compassion!”

When she said that last word, he lowered his soda and gave her a funny, quirky little smirk that was neither sarcastic or happy. “Compassion just got you clothes and three half-pound burgers. If you were looking for pity, you’re in the wrong place.”

“Who said anything about pity?”

But he was already getting up to throw his wrappers and empty cup away.  

After this, she convinced him easily enough to buy her some underwear, though it had to be the most embarrassing thing in her life when she had to have him next to her to punch in the numbers for his card.

 _I should have memorized the numbers for Jason’s card,_ she thought.

After that, she followed him to a library, where he logged onto a computer to find the nearest bus station, as well as the number for the local taxi. As she waited next to him, she looked at the bookshelves longingly, but knew better than to look. She had loved reading. But paper didn’t mix so well in the ocean. It would just hurt to take a look at them now.

 _I don’t want to live in the ocean._ So what if it was unreasonable to live on the shelf or hope she didn't get wet on land? This was all she knew. All the stories, books, hamburgers, strawberry milkshakes, old friends—for she hadn’t had the time to make new ones at her new home in Texas.

“Aren’t you worried that your foster parents have a search going on for you?”

Naru’s voice startled her out of her thoughts. He hadn’t looked up from the screen. A page of Mapquest was pulled up with directions to the nearest Greyhound station. She gave herself a sad little smile and looked away.

“Probably. But I’m not too worried about being found.”

“Hmm.” He plucked out a short pencil from the plastic cubby near the monitor and scribbled down an address. After a minute or two, in which she settled back down into her morose thoughts, he set to typing in some new addresses. “Are foster kids really into drugs and as messed up as they say?”

If she hadn’t been interrogated in this same blunt fashion by him the day before, she would have been shocked at his lack of propriety. Instead, she just answered, “I don’t know. I haven’t been in it that long.”

He clicked on a few web link addresses. “Parents just died?”

“Mom did. No one knows my dad.”

“Hmm. Accident?”

“Blood clot. In her brain.”

“Aneurism?”

“Yeah.”

He didn’t say anything to this. She expected him to say the usual stupid stuff she had heard, like “that must have been a horrible surprise,” and, “so she just dropped dead.” But, then again, there really wasn’t anything appropriate to say when someone’s mom just drops dead.

But, then again, she didn’t think about her mom anymore. That had been a year ago. It was just something you lived with.

Yet, he didn’t. He had to be professional and heartless, as with everything else.

“Did she leave you anything?”

“If you mean anything about mermaids, no. I sold most of it, and one of the only things I kept was that knife…which you left on your boat.”

“Sorry.” He had a talent for saying that without sounding it at all. “Should have told me.”

“What, along with ‘oh, by the way, please let me out?’”

“You really need to get over that.”

Her jaw dropped. Did he really just say that? To just…get over it?

She had just taken her breath to give him the snarkiest combat she could come up with to whack him into his place, when a large man walking through the doors of the library caught her attention. He didn’t look like the kind of person to visit the library.

In fact, he looked like he could be a sailor. A specific yacht sailor.

She dropped to the floor behind the computer cubical. Naru stared.

“From the boat,” she hissed.

It only took him a second to comprehend what she said. Rather than dropping to the floor like a fall out soldier, he clicked on his email tab and typed up a quick message. Before she could read it, he had sent it and switched off the computer.

And by then the sailor was only feet away.

Naru ducked his head down behind the computer cubby wall. “Go. Girl’s bathroom. I’ll meet you there.”

She didn’t have the mind to question him. Despite his lack of natural human compassion, he was a boy genius.

Crouched and hoping her stupid cheap flipflops didn’t give her away, she trotted to the non-fiction section. Through the shelves she could see a few patrons giving her odd looks as she slid around a display for marine biology.

Above the shelves came Naru’s cool voice.

“My, Charles, I could never imagine the likes of you in a library.”

“Let’s not make a scene, Mr. Shibuya.”

“If anyone will be making a scene, it’s you. Stupidity always does.”

“Where is she?”

“Where do you think? In the ocean.”

“Then I guess Tommy just saw her lookalike walking with you earlier.”

The restroom sign was a nasty, bubblegum pink from the seventies. She tried not to look too much like a derp spy sneaking into a bathroom, but just as her fingers brushed the cool metal square where the handle was a large hand swallowed her shoulder.

She didn’t think. She just reacted with her heel first, not caring where it hit.

Unfortunately, any grown man is hard pressed to be toppled by a girl’s kick to the thigh.

A boy who couldn’t be much older than ten stopped drinking at the water fountain nearby to stare.

“We’re much more than you think we are,” said Charles to Naru.

The large hands had already slapped around her mouth and wrangled her fists behind her. Kicking and squawking, she begged the gawking little boy with her eyes to run for it, to get help, but one look at the huge man buckled his knees together with a whimper.

The man moved his fingers just long enough to reach into his pocket.

“Naru!” Wait, that wasn’t his name--

He pressed a thumbtack into her neck, or at least, that’s what her first thought was before her half-born yelp of pain died off with blackness.


	12. Dr. Cellophane, Evil Scientist?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Naru get's introduced to the evil scientist. So what kind of scientist does that make Naru?

_“Weeki Wachee Springs_ _is a natural_ [ _tourist attraction_ ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourist_attraction) _located in_ [ _Weeki Wachee, Florida_ ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weeki_Wachee,_Florida) _, where underwater performances by "_ [ _mermaids_ ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mermaid) _", women wearing fish tails as well as other fanciful outfits, can be viewed in an aquarium-like setting in the spring of the_ [ _Weeki Wachee River_ ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weeki_Wachee_River) _.”_

_\--Wikipedia_

He had had the situation under control, he had been so sure of it. Thirteen years of akido, karate, judo, and kickboxing had made him all too sure of it. His pride in his physical capabilities had been so that he refused to have a personal assistant and bodyguard that couldn’t best him first. As the son of multimillionaires, kidnap and ransom was all too real a thing, no matter his age, and so thus he couldn’t have been more serious in his choice of Yui, let alone in his own training.

So why was he waking up with the disgusting taste of dry mouth in a room he had never been in before?

He flexed his hands to find, to his chagrin and delight, that whoever had put him here had been stupid enough to leave him untied. At the same time, if they had been able to take him out so easily, perhaps it was meant as a message of their confidence of being able to keep him.

How had Charles taken him again? Let see…the computer desk had been in-between them, yes. He had heard Mai scream some random gibberish and he remembered getting swallowed up in that same thought spinning, uncontrollable passion that had overtook him when she had fainted on the beach. He had ducked without seeing what Charles was about to do next, picked up the chair he had been sitting on intending to throw it at him, and then there had been a click…

Kazuya blanched. A gun. The idiot had a gun. He didn’t even have the time to register it before he had been shot. But, then…ah, a tranquilizer. How quaint.

“Naru?”

He flinched out of his thoughts to see a pair of familiar brown eyes and copper hair peering at him from over one of the sterile looking twin beds in the room. The combination of the white sheets, flooring, walls, and lights, all served to give her a sickly, pale look.

“What did you just call me?”

The face ducked even farther, and what he could see of her eyes crinkled, either in despair or humor, he couldn’t tell. “Um, it’s sort of what I’ve been calling you to myself. I can’t remember your real name…heh.”

So it was with humor.

He was not amused.

“You haven’t even bothered to remember my name?”

“Sorry. Though Naru fits you better.”

“I don’t even know where you got Naru, it sounds nothing like my name.” He sighed in exasperation. This wasn’t the time. “Forget that, do you know where we are?”

“No. I woke up just before you did and took a look around this room a bit.” A little pale hand rose above the sheets. “There’s a door in the corner that leads to a bathroom, and I think there’s one on that wall, but it really blends in. And there’s something weird with these walls, they’re all super smooth and cool, and there’s no lines or breaks anywhere. There aren’t even covers on the lights above us, it’s like we’re in a big glass box or something.”

He followed where her finger pointed as she spoke and verified everything that she said. As he took in the flat, unbroken walls and the two white beds (the only furniture in the room), a chill of ice crept up his spine. Glass box or not, there was one thing he was sure of, and that was no common riffraff sailor could have a prison like this in their basement. No ordinary person would have one either.

The panic tingled at the edge of his mind. He didn’t know anything about where he was, had no idea what he was dealing with—

He pushed it away and took a deep breath. No. He was smarter than this. He had trained specifically to deal with stress. This was nothing.

After taking note that the rest of his being was untouched, albeit rather dirtier than he remembered, he turned his attention to Mai.

“Why are you hiding behind the bed like that?”

What showed of her face flushed red. “Because those perverts dressed me in something weird, okay?”

What? Her and not him? “Let me see.”

“No! You’ll laugh.”

He scoffed. “Honestly, stop being such a child. I need all the clues I can get.”

Still blushing furiously, but resigned, the mermaid stood and stepped out from behind the bed to show a simple cotton, sleeveless, red hospital gown.

From the way she had been acting, he had expected much worse, and he gave her a look that told her so, to which she returned with a scowl.

“Don’t look at me like that, it opens up in the back and everything! And I got this stupid collar too.” From the neck of the gown she pulled out what could have been a plastic wire. Intrigued, he got up (ignoring the rush of blood from his head), and hooked a finger beneath the collar. Mai’s hands flashed to the back of the gown, probably to hold together the open back.

He pinched it. Rather than the hollow tube he had expected, he felt a hard, metal center. Satisfied, he dropped it.

“Must be something to prevent your escaping.”

“From what?” she squeaked. “Why would anyone want to kidnap me? I mean, I’ve never seen a mermaid on TV, and they knew about my transformations.”

“Perhaps there’s some biological properties of yours they can gain from.”

“You mean they’re going to…to cut off pieces of my skin and-and make super anti-aging cream to rich ladies or pluck out my eyes and—“

Her voice kept pitching higher and higher, and he feared if he let it go he’d lose his hearing.

“—crush them into a super healing gel, or use my blood to—“

“Mai.”

“—or dump me in water and pluck out my scales one by one for jewelry—“

“ _Mai._ ”

He flicked her hard on the forehead. She yelped and slapped a hand to the spot, but otherwise fell quiet. He ignored her pout and instead went to run his hands along the walls. A perfect box. No windows. No seams. Even the floor had a seamless, industrial carpet that barely had a texture above the smooth walls. The bathroom was also utilitarian, with a toilet and a shower spigot poking out from the wall above a normal, round drain in the floor.

No way out.

Breathe. Focus. Had to make a plan of action. First, the question. Then a hypothesis.

Where were they?

Probably in some cell that whoever his hired crewmen were shoved their guests into.

As he thought, he took in what he knew. The walls did feel like some sort of glass or acrylic. The plumbing was normal, although so well installed into its surroundings that it could have just come forth from the walls as the same, glassy material. Mai gave another little squeak when he fingered her gown to find that, though it had looked like cotton at first, it was actually of a waterproof material not unlike some swimsuits. So they planned on getting her wet. No surprise. She was a mermaid. They had been after her.

Which brought him to his next question: why bring him here as well? If she had been what they were really after, why not leave him? It wasn’t like anyone would believe him if he tried to report them, and if they feared anything otherwise they should have finished him off. Not many would question why someone would want to kill a rich, too-smart, too-perfect ass like him. Something told him he should be bothered by that, but it seemed so meaningless compared to the situation at hand.

He had just taken to examining the beds when a soft hiss came from the blank wall adjacent to the bathroom and a panel slid back to reveal an opening which a tall, plain man dressed in a lab coat and accompanied by what could only be bodyguards walked in. It only took Kazuya a second to assess his chances in combat against the muscled brutes as slim, as they held guns and were dressed head to foot in gray, bullet proof armor.

Mai scurried behind him anyways.

The labcoat guy smiled, and it said nothing. Everything about him told Naru nothing. He had ordinary thinning brown hair, droopy eyes, in need of a shave and somewhere between forty and fifty years old. He had nowhere to begin deciphering this man’s temperament.

The panel hissed shut behind them.

“Kazuya Shibuya, Ph’d of Supernatural, Paranormal, and Psychic investigations, graduated with honors from Stanford University at sixteen years old.”

“You forget my associates in human biology, organic chemistry, and forensic science,” said Kazuya.

“Either way, it’s a shame you’re on this side of the glass.”

“Is that what this place is, then? Some cliché idea of an evil scientist’s laboratory?”

“Not in the least. This is a harvesting facility.”

Mai’s fingers twisted up in the back of his shirt. Her knuckles shivered across the bumps of his spine.

Still, the scientist held that plain, cellophane smile. “Excuse my bad manners. My name is Timothy Reid, or Dr. Tim, as my co-workers like to call me. I’m here on behalf of my department to offer you a tour. You looked quite eager to learn about where you have ended up, which I can only expect. Pardon the…unorthodox welcome. Our ground team often times have to take such precautions in order to do their job.”

“Kidnapping mermaids?”

“From who?”

This gave Kazuya pause, but only for a second. “It was against her will. You should let her go.”

“To where? The ocean? Tell me, young lady, do you know how to fend for yourself in the ocean? Or was that your first attempt to live down there? Did you see some tasty crabs? Did you know eating crab lungs can make you violently ill, even die?”

Mai’s hands shook harder. She didn’t say a word, which unnerved Kazuya. She had been plenty vocal when he had caught her. This shouldn’t be any different. He was there, after all, and nothing could go against his will.

So instead, he lowered his chin to glare out at the scientist from beneath his eyebrows. “Stop it. She gets the idea.”

“Does she? Because we intend to take care of her quite well, I’ve even brought her dinner to enjoy while you are on your tour with us. I hear she likes strawberry milkshakes.”

As he spoke, one of the guards stepped out to pull in a small trolley that had been pulled in without Kazuya’s notice. That worried him even more. It was rare when anything escaped his notice. Part of being good at what he did was being meticulous by nature.

But, whether or not the tour was a trap or not, he knew there was no other choice for him. He couldn’t learn anymore from staying in this room. He didn’t have the luxury to consider whether or not Mai would be harmed while he was away, because even if he stayed there wouldn’t be much he could do otherwise. Martial arts were good and useful, but not practical to a day of guns and armor.

There was just nothing else he could do.

Mai’s fingers clung to his shirt until the last minute, when a guard gently pushed her back into the room behind him and closed the door. The last thing he heard was a quiet, frightened: “Naru.”

Why did that affect him so much? And how could it not?

The hall wasn’t much different from the cells, and Kazuya didn’t fail to notice the two giant men falling in on either side of him, with the scientist in front.

“Now, where to begin?”

“How about where this is?” Naru said dryly.

“Oh, you’re just inside the Mexican border, along the coast just beyond the southern tip of Texas in an underground facility we fondly refer to as the American Aquatic Agricultural Center, or the triple A for short.”

**Author's Note:**

> I update at least once a week every Wednesday, so stay tuned!


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